M. Night Shyamalan Provides B-Movie Satisfaction With Girls-in-a-Basement Thriller ‘Split’

In Movies & TV by April Snellingsleave a COMMENT

Is there a support group for young women who are drugged, gassed, or conked on the noggin and forcibly extracted from troubled lives, only to awaken hours later, confined to a dank basement by a madman with ill intent? There certainly should be; if post-9/11 horror is any indication, there’s already a small army of these girls, with new recruits stumbling into the daylight every day. Although I guess the point of these films is that any young woman who emerges from a basement after such an ordeal doesn’t need a support group.

Horror’s newest girl-in-a-basement is high-school student Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy), who finds herself kidnapped along with classmates Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula) in the opening moments of Split. Their abductor is Dennis (James McAvoy), a buttoned-up, no-nonsense type whose extreme OCD will later complicate his demands that the girls remove their clothing. (Is it really the dirt that bothers him, or is there something worse on his mind?) And since the “split” in the title refers to dissociative identity disorder (DID), their abductor is also a prudish religious zealot called Patricia, who might spend her Sundays shopping for shawls with Mrs. Bates; a lisping 9-year old Kanye West enthusiast known as Hedwig; an effete fashion designer named Barry; and so on, all fighting for “the light” in the body of their host, Kevin.

So begins M. Night Shyamalan’s entry in the canon of films that mine a poorly understood mental illness for lurid thrills. Just as his found-footage potboiler The Visit alienated many viewers with its troubling depiction of dementia, Split won’t win any fans among people hoping for a sensitive, cogent exploration of DID. But it’s two-thirds of a wholly engrossing, cracking-good B-movie that embraces its trashiness and doesn’t seem to mind too much if we laugh at how silly it can get.

The main attraction, of course, is McAvoy, who takes visible delight in toggling between Kevin’s many personalities. There are 23 that have manifested so far, and none of them can shut up about a 24th personality whose ominous approach drives the plot. Known only as “the Beast,” it’s this nascent identity that the girls are repeatedly warned about. It’s enough to spur Claire and Marcia into full-on fight-or-flight mode for a series of tautly staged escape attempts, but Casey is reluctant to embrace her Final Girl status; maybe there’s some residual anxiety left over from own alter ego as the star of last year’s marvelous The Witch. Casey opts to engage Dennis et al. on their own terms, probing her captor’s weaknesses in order to wage psychological warfare.

For a guy who made a movie about a murderous uprising by plants, Shyamalan plays it pretty straight for the duration of Split. The fatal flaw of Lady in the Water and The Happening—that Shyamalan apparently expected us to take them seriously—is absent here, and with the exception of some needlessly ugly flashbacks, Split mostly feels like the guilty pleasure it is.

Shyamalan’s knack for casting has never been more apparent. McAvoy’s contortions of character are as thrilling as any special effect, and the endlessly watchable Betty Buckley is impressive in an entirely different way as Kevin’s therapist, a character who exists solely for the purpose of dispensing large chunks of exposition via talking-head monologues and still manages to be an utterly engaging presence. I wish Taylor-Joy had more to do, but she makes the most of an underwritten character.

It isn’t quite fair to say that Split marks a return to form for Shyamalan—he’s been on an upward swing with Wayward Pines and The Visit, and Split continues that trajectory, even if it descends into a jumble of worn-out genre tropes in its third act. (It can be argued that, in the wake of The Last Airbender and After Earth, the only way to go was up.) But it’s certainly his best film in years and another reminder that he’s a skilled suspense director, even if his instincts as a writer don’t always serve him well.

I don’t think it spoils anything to say that Split has a few distinct personalities of its own, and that some work better than others. If the identity that finally emerges with Kevin’s 24th persona is a bit of a bore, the movie has one last trick up its sleeve in the form of a last-minute reveal that, depending on the viewer, either serves as a puzzling footnote to an afternoon of solid exploitation-movie thrills, or a brash jaw-dropper of a twist that not only makes up for Split’s stumbles, but demands that we re-evaluate them in a different light. For the time being, at least, it seems that Shyamalan is listening to the right voices.

April Snellings is a staff writer and project editor for Rue Morgue Magazine, which reaches more than 500,000 horror, thriller, and suspense fans across its media platforms. She recently joined the lineup of creators for Glass Eye Pix's acclaimed audio drama series Tales from Beyond the Pale, an Entertainment Weekly “Must List” pick that has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Share this Post